The party: Cavalier, Mage, Druid, and Rogue - all from Essentials.The situation: Having been recruited into the Foresite Irregulars by Charles Forsite, they'd previously proven they could work together when investigating the Crypt of Col Fen http://cardboard-warriors.proboards.com ... hread=3526 - they were then hired out by the Two Shores Trading House to investigate the sinking of merchant ships near the the island of Coyoli.

I role-played out the mapping investigation, with them making friends with the crew members and mercenaries on their ship (a scale model - sorry no pics from that...). When their ship got to the encounter area, almost everyone was looking toward shore, where all the wreckage was. This meant they were surprised when the Sea Drake broadsided them and rolled a crit against the hull! The ship immediately listed and tossed most of the crew and company into the drink. The mercenaries were all in heavy armor and sunk to their deaths. The second hit dropped the mast into the ocean, along with the dingy. The quick thinking party members righted the shore-craft and climbed inside, rescuing a nearby sailor. During this, several other crew members were swallowed hole by the sea drake.

As the small overloaded rowboat was madly paddled toward shore, the ship that brought them here sank beneath the waves, and the drake turned it's attention to them. Some clever role-playing by the mage (ghost sounds) combined with nature knowledge requested by the druid "Do I know the natural enmities of the Sea Drake?" let to them being able to shoo it away from them (or the creature was recalled...)

This image is just after this "Encounter 0" - as they are about to land upon the beach (and encounter A-1 is waiting for them):

The one surviving sailor didn't fare well with the island welcoming committee - the party buried him, hid the rowboat off the beach, rested briefly before heading inland, following the tracks of a native woman they saw during their battle (not pictured here.)

Heading inland tracking the mysterious native girl, the party happens upon a large fallen tree - and an unfortunate native killed by the fall...While investigating they disturb a family of Flitting Drakes.

Initially the smaller ones simply buzz the party, grabbing at their packs and weapons. The mage decides to have none of that and uses a fire spell to take most of them down as they go through the trees, setting the branches on fire. The parent-drakes become furious and fight to the death. The Paladin searches the dead native and is infected with the Shivers, which only gets worse as the run away from the small forest fire they started (which draws the attention of hostile natives.) The successfully hide and use the path of their pursuers to find their way toward [A-5] The Coyomi Village...

The Forsite Irregulars were able to back-track the native hostiles to a small village, and approached it quietly, after dark to observe. The saw several native women and children tending to a large burned-out hut - but no men (becuase of the darkness, they couldn't make out the zombies chained near the large hut on the far end of the ancient village.

After some tentative parley (using only a hand-written translation guide, found at A-1) with the frightened women tending the hut, battle breaks out! A gnoll commander comes out of the far hut to see what's happening and barks commands to the Comiqui warriors resting in the other huts. Here's a battle shot:

The (captive) women ran to the other hut, but zombie attacks and kill two of them. The Mage created a flame zone that dispatched a large number of the warriors, and the party was able to focus fire on the commander, taking him down pretty quickly. The zombie mop-up was painful, but successful.

Out of hiding came Snake Sister - what was left of the tribal leadership of this village - which had been captured by the Comiqui warriors from the other (larger) island. She was appreciative of their help dispatching this group, but now feared for her sisters safety - if only they could liberate their men, who were being held captive in a nearby cave (Encounter A-3) - After granting a few boons (including Healing the Paladin's Shivers, and Comprehend Languages and Tenser's Floating Disk rituals) she sends the party with a native guide (the woman from the beach - who is married to one of the captive men) first thing in the morning.

After resting and being supplied by Snake-sister, the party was guided safely to a safe distance from the cave being used to hold the Coyomi men captive...

Goblins were guarding the men, and leading one of them to the large waste-trench outside the mouth of the cave...

While the guards are divided and distracted, the thief sneaks through the trees while the paladin charges up the center (she has an excellent first-turn charge feat...) the druid's companion follows closely behind while the spell casters take up position in behind the treeline... All would have been fine, if there weren't goblin snipers in the trees!

As long as they were able to use missile attacks, the goblins were able to do some damage, but quickly the tide turned against them - and one escaped into the heavy brush. The party was so swift, the contingency plan to kill the captives only took one casualty...

After returning to the village with the men, Snake-sister and Jaguar-brother described the history of the island, how pirates had come to the island and had secreted their "great catamaran" somewhere on the larger island. A hand-full of quests were given to the party.

She also indicated that the rowboat they'd hidden had been discovered and burned up. The only ways to the other island were via a low-tide land bridge and catamaran, and all of those had been seized by the pirates and their new allies the Comiqui. Except one that they keep guarded in another cave [Encounter A4] - Jaguar brother agrees to lead them to the area.

The Goblin sniper figures were new and from Paizo's new http://paizo.com/products/btpy8mq6?Path ... s-MonstersA lot of these "lead" mini's are almost 40 years old - the yellow goblins, the human captives, etc. That's un-thinned Testor's enamel paint, unmixed on non-primed figures. I was a kid, and in a hurry.

Jaguar-son leads the party to the cave where the Catamaran is hidden...

[Pre-Session Build Photo]

But the cave mouth his hidden under brush (see next photo) - The party sends the druid's wolf-comanion to sniff around in the brush in an attempt to flush out the guardians inside. It eventually works, and the paladin leaps into the fray while the party snipes from the entrance.

They eventually force Inknose, the goblin wizard, to surrender the catamaran and they let him go, to taunt their new arch-enemy, his captain - Ulars Bhet! Tethering the boat to themselves, they guide it down the small stream/river until they can ride it to the ocean. They say goodby to Jaguar-son and head accross to the other island, near the tidal shallows in order to avoid the Sea Drake.

They make for a small stretch of beach that seems to have some kind of marker on it... (Encounter C-1)

You'll also see crates of different sizes throughout my builds. Those come from everywhere - there are often white space filler in kits from Dave Graffam Models, Fat Dragon Games, and there are even free ones - http://www.stones-edges.com/freesamples

Notes: I really liked how adding 3D terrain mixed with the full-detail maps looks. This is a pattern I use going forward whenever possible.

The Irregulars hugged the coastline and landed at the beach closest to the Skull Totem, even though they could see a tower in the distance, they didn't do much to hide their landing. The examined the Skull Totem on the beach - clearly meant as some kind of warning.

They dragged their catamaran off the beach and hid when they heard the cry of some great bird, that came swooping down the beach from the direction of the tower.

A sacrifice of the Druid's wolf companion was sufficient to satisfy the Griffin's command to investigate what was on the beach. The party then stayed under cover in in an attempt to approach the tower [encounter C-2] without being detected before they could investigate further.

The Irregulars decided that being spotted by the tower on the hill was probably a bad thing, so attempted to sneak up to neutralize the threat.

The guardian was ready for them - but had sent his Griffons out on patrol, initially only one was present to engage for the first round, but it's swooping attacks were very effective...

The paladin decided to charge the tower, and, after blowing the horn to draw reinforcements, the watchman was waiting for her, ready to push her off the ladder...

But she was made of sterner stuff and held her ground on the tower top - melee ensued both at the top of the tower and on the ground. Griffons, and Coyomi hunters were causing significant damage to the party (even knocking the rogue unconscious) while the struggle on the top of the tower was making it very unstable. Eventually the paladin grabbed the watchman, and heaved him over the edge, to his death!

Seeing their captor dead, the griffons flew off in the direction of the highest peaks on the island. They collected the watchman's horn [quest-item] for later return to Snake Sister.

They camped inland and on higher ground for the night. During the night the party was visited by an old man with grey hair, surrounded by 7 canaries. No one except the paladin could see him. He signaled that she should follow him, but she refused. He started saying her name, first quietly, then more loudly and she started shaking uncontrollably. Then she woke up to the rogue, who was trying to wake her by shouting her name and shaking her. "It was a dream!" - it was still night - she stood up an walked to the edge of camp to look in the direction indicated by the spirit of Bahamut, her patron deity. In the distance she saw a dim flickering flame near where they'd spied swampland earlier. "We go there at first light - there is something there for me."

As they approached the swamp, they could see a ruined tower in the soft, gooey center of the valley between two hills, with runnoff keeping the soil completely over-saturated... [Build photo]

Indeed, there was a flaming sword flickering at the center of the ruined tower (effect provided by a battery-powered flicker candle)...

While slogging through the swamp, the party was attacked by a hidden Vine Lord who did a very good job of immobilizing them with his tentacles while the clay guardians in the tower attacked at range with psychic powers. Using fire and range spells, the party drove off the vine lord (without killing him) and destroying the guardians. [The earthy area-markers are for quicksilt traps]

The paladin claimed her prize, and the party camped on the ruined second floor of the tower so they could avoid being surprised by the Vine Lord's possible return.

From the ruined tower the Irregulars could see far to the north the old-city in the basin of the mountain range in the north, and could just make out the legendary ziggurat mentioned by Snake Sister. But rather than head directly there on foot, they returned to the coast and took the catamaran to complete the other side-quests she gave them. First to investigate The Thirsty Grandmother - Amiquitli - marooned on an island devoid of life for horrific crimes:

As they came onto the island they spotted and carefully approached an abandoned hut [build pic]:

They were accosted by a ghost of an old woman who beckoned them take her bones back to the main island for proper burial to be with her ancestors. When the party disturbed the rock-pile under the hut, the true demonic form of Amiquitli jumped out and attacked. It was a lopsided battle, with the party unloading their dailies in short order. Now she was truly dead.

Hugging the coastline, the party next went to recover the sunken items from wrecked ships at the coral reef. The giant rays and giant crocodile made their treasure recovery tricky (the hafling druid almost got swallowed hole). The booty included one of the items they needed to get off the island: navigational charts. Now they just needed a ship and a crew.

After beaching their catamaran, hopefully for the last time, they had one last task to complete for Snake-Sister before climbing into the hills to find Ulars Bhet and his murderous slaver crew - they had to try to find out what happened to Owl-Brother's attempt to purge the land of it's undead influence. He'd last headed to the farms downhill from the old city.

The crops were being watered from a central irrigation system - apparently a local spring provided the pumping action, and gravity channeled the water to each field.

The fields had strange containers dotting their rows - boxes, crates, and bags which turned out to be covering the heads zombies (each orifice filled with a black powder) that were being nurtured as Comiqui slaves. The party was attacked relentlessly by the undead under the control of their master...

Every time a zombie fell, it was replaced by another from one of the fields. This meant there was no cover for the wizard, and he quickly knocked out. Fortunately, before they were totally overwhelmed, they managed to slay the overseer and seized his mask, immobilizing all the undead. The Paladin kept the mask, lest it be used for more evil. They recovered a foul smelling liquid on one of the zombies that was carrying Owl-brother's other objects. They poured it into the cistern which diluted it and pumped it to all the fields, destroying all the zombies-sprouts and purifying the soil.

[The next encounters took place over a very large map of the ruined city - so I'm breaking it into several posts...]

Climbing toward the Ziggurat on the mountain-top takes the Foresite Irregulars directly through The Dead City. Little did they know how devastated the city was...

Ruined buildings everywhere with devastated civilians are barely surviving and hiding under whatever cover they can find. Before they can get very far into the city, they are attacked by skelton hounds and a fire-thowing ape.

Though the ruined buildings provided some cover for our heroes, the enhanced maneuverability of their foes proved quite a challenge.

Though ultimately successful, they considered a short rest, when they heard strange noises coming from the far end of the city. It looked like resting would not be possible without granting reinforcements for their enemy - so they ran toward the fountain at the base of the mountain cliffs and the gate marking the edge of town.

As our heroes approached the high-end of the ruined city, they came to a square featuring a corrupted fountain, with a witch-doctor scraping black powder off a huge crystal growing out it's center. The water was vile and thick, and the entire square was littered with corpses in various states of decay - some of them recognizable as Comiqui and pirates that they'd previously defeated.

Beyond the fetid fountain and the square was a great gate, over a path leading up to the temple on the mountain

Battle featured witch-doctor alternating between ressurecting the dead around him with pressing panels on the fountain's side to activate various spewing traps, mostly keeping the party at a distance...

Even then, the wolf-companion and wizard were able to effectively limit their enemies options, and defeat him.

Still no sign of the pirate slavers or a any sort of crew. Next - the the long climb.

Passing through the gate at the end of the city, the Irregulars began the long climb up the cliff sides toward the ruined temple on the peak - this would increase their altitude by hundreds of feet, and lead from cliff-side to cliff-side across rickety bridges:

Along the way, they were surprised to set off a hastily set rolling bolder trap (see the boulders?):

After seeing it miss its target, the party could hear Dwarvish curses "Die already, you scum sucking pirates!" in the fog ahead on another cliffside. They carefully approached the trap setter, suspecting he might be an ally - a good guess as it was the famished and weak (though still assertive) navigator of The Even Keel (who's charts the party already recovered) whom they quickly befriended. The navigator tells them that the slavers already have the rest of the crew imprisoned somewhere ahead, and he wants to help rescue them..

Our heroes +1 finally reach the temple summit to find it apparently abandoned, except for a lone campfire burning up the path between great stone statues.

There are more giant chunks of onyx crystal growing everywhere, especially from the center of the (now) ruined tample.

As they approach the temple, arrows fly passed their heads! An ambush! Goblins fire from the upper floors of the temple ruins and hobgoblins charge from hiding places inside. Lastly, an invisible imp appears whenever and wherever it can cause the most damage. Fortunately, the dwarf navigator happens to be a crack-shot with the crossbow.

When the goblins are all eliminated, the party discovers a secret latch that releases a bridge over to another peak [no pics, but re-used one of the models from the previous encounter] - where 10 members of the Even Keel! The navigator agrees to stay with his crew mates, tend to their wounds, and hide them in the forest until it's time to leave. The Irregulars eventually discover a hidden shaft down into the mountain, which they agree to take after spending the night on the roof of the temple. [I put a bunch of meta-plot in here about the Onyx Crystals, and the catastrophe that caused all this damage - omitted here for brevity.]

It was a very long climb down into the hidden natural basement, originally used for storage or some kind of rituals. Even so, there was evidence of the Onyx catastrophe even down here (not pictured.)Entering the Antechamber they encountered two Mud Golems (replacing the module's Baboons - because I had two golem figures...)

Soon after the fighting started, the Pirate Wizard Ulars Bhet entered through the double doors and did in some nasty ranged magic damage. The party quickly unleashed their dailies, almost bloodying him in two rounds, despite taking quite a bit of punishment themselves. There was a loud crash from behind the door, and water started seeping beneath and under his feet, so he spat something about "cursed devil!" and went back through the door, locking it. This caused the PCs to curse too! By the time they finally defeated the golems and broke through the door, the wizard had vanished!

In his bed chamber they discovered a strange broken class structure - a man-sized water tank that had been knocked over and spilled it's contents everywhere - but the wizard and whatever was in the tank were gone. There were notes on Bhet's desk describing a coral crown that controlled the sea drake, and described a humanoid sea-creature as being the current wearer - and how he was having problems controlling him. Eventually, by tracking the water trail, they found a secret door out of the room...

Through the secret door, following the water trail lead to dead-ended round room ringed with water-lizard statues and a clockwork structure in the center with it's two hands pointing at 12:00. There was no sign of any secret doors. [I substituted a puzzle for the simple leaver in the module, something that worked out wonderfully.] The party spent some time experimenting to discover that the room rotated.

Eventually they figured out to move each hand in opposite directions to 6:30 in order to get the room aligned with the opposite exit. This lead to a long descending natural corridor, clearly worn out by centuries of water flow....

After several rotations, and dropping hundreds of feet, they run into none-other than Ulars Bhet, obviously bloodied and running upward, away from some clearly deadly threat. As he arrived a loud ROAR ripps through the cavern. "If you want to ever get off this island, you'll get down there and kill stop that devil - he's commanding the Sea Drake to destroy my ship!". After acquiescing to the parties demand to disarm, they let him go (thus gaining their first recurring nemesis) and rush down to their final encounter!

[Note: Encounter C-3 The Pool of Life in deep in the woods and didn't really make any sense to me - a healing pool without any nearby encounters doesn't mean much in 4e with extended rests, so I moved it to a fountain adjacent to The Grotto, near where the sea devil was hiding controlling the drake... I also bumped it's power just a bit...]

Running down to the base of the mountain, heading directly for the amplfiying roars, they see a natural cave containing a fountain surrounded by several statues.

This chamber opened into a large cave-grotto - where a large ship was docked an under attack by the Sea Drake.

(Here's the grand table view of the action when it all starts...)

The party hasn't been noticed by the pirates who are focused on attacking the monster with bows and ballista. They don't see the sea drakes controller anywhere and assume he's in the water somewhere. So the investigate the fountain -and find that drinking from it restores two healing surges as well as restores an encounter power! They would use this during the coming battle as well.The paladin examines the statutes (as she did back in the round room) and notices that one of them doesn't have any dust on it. The party looks closely, and this lizard-like creature statue is wearing a crown, apparently modeled after the coral one that controls the Sea Drake. They quickly conclude that this must be the stone-form of their quarry and attack, doing no damage. Since 3 party members were close, the statue chooses to come alive and execute it's close-burst attack! The battle is joined, and draws the attention of some of the pirates as well!

The sea drake, continues to take chunks out of The Raptor while battle continues.

Eventually, the controller is vanquished and a few moments later, freed from the crown's influence the sea drake gives up the attack..The irregulars then take the fight to the docks - "Get those slaver scum!". There was much combat and intimidation. All of Bhet's crew were either killed, or jumped into the water and swam out of the grotto!

After securing the ship, The crew of the Even Keel arrived at the grotto, and everyone was able to sail home (after a brief trip back to visit with the Coyomi, and visiting one last time with Snake-Sister.)

I hope you all liked the photo-blog postings of my 3D version of The Isle of the Sea Drake. I enjoyed running it immensely. Please feel free to share what you think about these postings as of this weekend, I start running The Sellswords of Punjar and want to know if a liveblog of their passage through my 3D version of this module is of interest to those here...

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